


Beholding Bedtime Stories: Idiots in Love

by guilt_is_for_mortals



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding Bedtime Stories, Fluff, Fluff and (slight) Crack, Forehead Kisses, Idiots in Love, Jumpers, M/M, Set in Season 1, The Beholding, The Beholding as a Narrator, sassy narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guilt_is_for_mortals/pseuds/guilt_is_for_mortals
Summary: The Beholding loves to be told stories.Sometimes the Beholding also wants totellstories.Get yourself some tea and change into your cosiest jumper.Todays story is about a little archivist and his assistant falling in love.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 16
Kudos: 91





	Beholding Bedtime Stories: Idiots in Love

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo... this is a thing now.  
> This kind of storytelling is not quite something I would usually write,  
> but the idea got stuck in my head and I wanted to try and it turned out good enough that I thought I'd share it with you.
> 
> I really hope you like it.
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to miraeyeteeth for beta-reading this story!!

Let me tell you a story.    
Why? Well, because I am bored and this is a nice story to tell. I am not just about to tell you if it ends well or poorly, but don’t worry, you will find out when we get there, right?  
  
Our story begins in a stuffy old Institute somewhere in London. It was raining outside that day. Which might not seem that important for this story, except that it is for the fact that the first person we meet, Jonathan Sims, was about to come in without an umbrella. He was completely soaked head to toe, his greying, shoulder length hair flat against his head like seaweed.   
  
Jonathan - we will call him Jon going on - was coming into the office with a very sour look on his very wet face and his mood could not have been worse. Which is a lot to say, because his mood was rarely good, or even okay. So it didn’t come as a big surprise to his coworkers that he was as grumpy as a student showing up to a mandatory monday morning lecture.  
  
Tim, one of the assistants, asked Jon if he had decided to take his shower right on the way to the institute, and for the first time of many this day, Jon tried to decide if firing Tim would be worth the trouble of losing a good worker. He decided that it was not yet bad enough for him to do so. Yet. Mostly because he would have to give important work to  _ Martin _ , and that was not something he even wanted to consider.   
  
Said Martin was currently bothering the kettle to make some tea. Martin was the type of person to put everything he had into the needs of others, neglecting his own somewhere on the way. He was exactly what Jon needed, but Jon didn’t know that yet. So he justs sighs, a deep, longsuffering sigh, as Martin hands him a yellow cup full of tea, as if it was a burden having to drink it.   
  
_ Poor Martin _ , you might now think, but this was what he wanted. just to be needed, not necessarily praised or even acknowledged, but needed all the same. He didn’t know that the later was what he  _ actually  _ wanted, because no one had ever given him praise or acknowledgement. Be that as it may, Martin was happy with Jon drinking his tea, even if he looked like there could just as well have been pickle water in the cup instead of sugary earl grey.   
  
So far, this could have been any normal day at The Institute, but that would not be worth a story, would it? Something was different today, and that was Jon being completely soaked with rain from head to toe. Martin, who just couldn’t watch his boss - whom he had a crush on since the day he scolded him for letting a dog into the office - suffer with the feeling of cold, wet clothes sticking to his skin. He contemplated that it would be the best to just strip Jon naked and embrace him into his big arms to keep him warm, but a little voice inside his head told him that that might very well lead to him being fired. His face burned at that thoughts as he stumbled into the storage room where he lived at the moment.   
  
You might wonder why he lived there, and what was wrong with his perfectly fine apartment in the city, but that is another story, and not one for today. Martin found a nice jumper - one of his favourites, striped white and baby blue, and sniffed it like the adult he was. It seemed to be washed - or at least just once worn - and so he took it and made his way over to Jons office, where the man had vanished with his tea.   
  
Did Martin have work to do? Probably, but as Jon tended to just give him he easiest or most tiring tasks, Martin had no hurry to get back to his desk. He also was not even qualified to work at this place and had faked all of his resume but his name, so Jon might not be that wrong about Martin at times. Jon did not know that though. Martin was sure he would be fired by now if he knew.  
  
Can you imagine where this story is going yet? It is a nice one, isn’t it? I hope you are entertained so far. You surely by now assume that Martin is about to be scolded, or maybe ignored, as he knocks on the wooden door and enters Jons office.  
  
Jon was about to record a statement, still in his wet clothes and hair, because the man really had no sense of self preservation. He also inhaled statements like a chain smoker would inhale cigarettes, and so he might just have needed this after the very unpleasant morning. Who are we to judge, really?  
  
He stopped his recording with an angry snort and a very terse order for Martin to leave his office. It was a bit unlike Martin to disregard such a statement from his boss, but his will to make everyone but himself happy was stronger.   
He placed the jumper onto Jons desk, knocking over a pile of paper while doing so. In moments like these, you could almost understand Jons exasperation with Martin, couldn’t you? He tried so hard. Some would call it adorable, some would call it nerve wracking. Jon belonged to the second sort.   
  
Martin almost fled the dusty office, making his way back up to his desk, wondering if he could write some poems in peace if he acted like he was writing notes for research. Jon had given him a ridiculous statement to track down - even Martin could tell that this was probably one given by someone curious about The Institute, making up a story to get a glimpse inside.    
  
What Martin did not know was that down in his office, Jonathan Sims was trying really hard to ignore the jumper, but didn’t quite succeed.   
He was freezing and angry. The tea was helping, but that just worsened his mood. He had decided to hate Martin from the first day on, why did the man have to be so nice? Jon really was as emotionally oblivious as it sounds, and he had no clue why someone - especially Martin - would take any interest in being nice to him. The jumper smelled really nice though, and he found his thoughts drifting back to it, while his own clothes started drying uncomfortably on his body.    
  
He couldn’t wear Martins jumper. It was highly unprofessional. It was too big. It was smelling so good and it looked so soft… Jon didn’t know exactly when he had started stripping right there in his office, but he pulled of his jumper vest and unbuttoned his damp shirt, exposing his chest. Had Martin known what was happening down here, he might have dropped to the floor with a nosebleed. But Martin did not know.   
  
Martin did not know how Jon inhaled the scent of the jumper as he pulled it over his head, how nice it felt to be engulfed in warmth, to hide his ice cold fingers in the way too long sleeves. It almost looked like he was wearing a dress, the hem ending just above his knees. Martin did not know how comfy Jon felt as he wrapped his hands around the steaming mug to warm them. Jon would probably have died of embarrassment if Martin knew.   
  
So, you might say, what story is this even, a story about how a man wears a jumper? Well, to a point, yes. But you see, it is not his own jumper, which is a very important factor in what is about to happen. There is more? Of course there is. This is not the end for a story, right? Where were we? Oh yes.   
  
A few hours went by and Martin, though by sheer accident, found a clue that could prove the false statement as not so false as he had originally thought. Had Martin been a person to be nice to himself, he would have been proud of finding this out. But Martin wasn’t that kind of person, and so he went down to Jons office again, to try and get the praise he deserved from a man who would not give it to him.   
  
Armed with his notes and new revelations he opened the door to find his boss wrapped up in his own jumper, cuddled up in his seat, teacup in hand. Martin, a self proclaimed poet, thought several pretty thoughts that would have made a decent love poem, feeling like the protagonist in a romantic movie. Jon, who did not know what Martin was thinking, stared sourly at the man he tried to hate. The emphasis here is on  _ tried, _ because Jon found it really hard to hate Martin when he was wearing the man’s jumper and was wrapped in warmth and the smell of his cologne. It was much easier to hate the world and the people in it when you were miserable, and Martin lightened Jons misery sometimes. Jon was not sure if this was a good or a bad thing. Jon was an idiot sometimes. Most times, really.   
  
He snapped at Martin and demanded to know what the other was doing here,  _ again,  _ disturbing him in his work. Martin, whose face was glowing red by now, stammered through the new revelation in the case he had discovered. Jon just stared at him, because Jon didn’t know how to express that Martin might not be a complete waste of space and Institute money sometimes. Martin didn’t know how to read minds and so he felt like exactly that.    
  
He blurted out that the blue color looks really nice on Jon - a strange compliment, considering it only made the dark circles under Jon's eyes stand out really nicely. Jon blushed. He really did, even if you might not believe that from what you’ve heard about him. But Jon rarely ever got compliments, as he was not what you would call conventionally attractive. He was too small and skinny for that, but then on the other hand you had people like Martin, tall and broad, who loved the look of Jons sharp angles. He could probably just pick him up, throw him over his shoulder and carry him out of the Institute if he wanted to...   
  
Anyways, where was I… Oh, yes. Two idiots who were about to fall in love with each other stood there in a stuffy office room, both of them now blushing and trying so hard to think of something to say.   
  
Jon wanted to tell Martin that he was not as bad as he thought he was, that it had been really nice of him to give him his jumper when he was cold. That he sometimes imagined Martin picking him up and carrying him out of the institute when he did not have it in himself to stand up and stop working. But Jon was not good with words and even worse with feelings. So he didn’t tell him.  
  
Martin wanted to tell Jon that he did not care if he was moody and prickly, because he could see beneath that. That all he would need to completely, madly fall in love with him would be a kinda word, a compliment. A glimpse behind this asocial exterior behind which he knew was a loving and passionate man. But Martin didn’t not know how to put that into words, and though he was falling in love he was also afraid it might all be just in his head. So he didn’t tell him.   
  
It is fate - probably, I am not the one to judge what powers might be intervening, but that’s my best guess - that in this very moment the lightbulb in the office decides to go out with a sizzling sound. Jon let out an endearing, startled gasp, though would swear under oath that such a sound had  _ never  _ escaped his mouth.   
  
_ Jon? Martin? _ Each others names on their lips they begin stumbling towards something, someone to hold on in the complete darkness. Jons thin hands grab into the soft wool of Martins jumper as he found his coworker in the room. How nice it was to have someone to hold onto, strong and warm and  _ there.  
  
_ _ Jon? _ Martin wonders why there had not yet been a snarky comment, why he had not yet let go. Why it felt as if Jon was coming even closer.  
  
_ Martin. _ Jons voice had lost it’s sharp undertone and Martin had to admit how much he loved his name being spoken in this tone. Not with annoyance or anger, but with something else he could not really describe. Something… good.   
  
What Martin heard was Jon realizing that, while he tried so much to hate Martin day after day, he had spent all this time thinking about him. Noticed every little detail, every stupid smile, every damn cup of tea, every time he barged into the office without knocking properly... Things he did not notice, did not care about when others did them.   
  
People say that the opposite of love is indifference, and Jon was very much not indifferent about Martin. One of them knocked over a pile of statements, the sudden sound startling them both and Martin found himself standing very close to Jon, who was almost sitting on his desk. He had not let go of Martins jumper and he could feel his fingers trembling slightly. He was so close that he could feel Jons warmth in the otherwise cold room.    
  
Without thinking, and because he was someone to try and comfort people as good as he could, Martin placed his lips onto Jons forehead and told him, whispering, to not worry, that he was there. Jon remained silent while his brain short-circuited, caused thoughts and feelings it could not process.  _ Martin kissing him. _ Him not hating the fact that Martin kissed him, not at all. How nice it felt to be held and to feel save for a moment. And though he could not put any of that into words, he could detach his fingers from the fabric of Martins jumper and put them around his waist, holding him tight. Martin understands, at least for this moment.   
  
But as this is a story about finding love and not one about what the hell to do when you found it, it comes to an end as Tim barges right into the office holding a large flashlight.   
Before the light beam could reach either Jon or Martin they have detangled themselves from each other, though both of them show a lovely pink blush on their cheeks. If Tim noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. He told them about the power outage and lead them back up to research, where the sunset painted the walls and documents in a fiery orange.   
  
Our story ends with Martins and Jons hands brushing against each other only for a stolen moment, and with both of them sure that they will talk about it.  _ One day.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you would be interested in more Beholding Stories!


End file.
